Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/264

256 and on the point of being flayed, to be placed within the door of his garden or court where it borders on the Via de Ginori. This Lorenzo, his nephew, desired to see accompanied by another Marsyas in pietra rossa (the torso and head of which had come into his hands), a work of high antiquity, and much greater beauty than that first mentioned; but the figure being so extensively mutilated, he could not eflect his purpose, whereupon he gave the torso and head to Andrea Verrocchio, that this master might restore it, and he completed it so perfectly, adding the legs, thighs, and arms that were wanting to that figure, in pieces of red marble, that Lorenzo was highly satisfied, and caused the statue to be placed in face of the other on the opposite side of the door. The antique torso of this Marsyas was executed with such minute care and thought, that certain slender white veins in the red stone had been turned to account bv the artist, and made to seem like those small nerves discovered in the human form when the skin has been removed, a circumstance that must have given this work a most lifelike appearance when in its original perfection.

The Venetians at this time, desiring to do honour to the distinguished valour of Bartolommeo da Bergamo, who had obtained for them many great victories, resolved to raise a monument to his name, hoping thereby to encourage other leaders. Having heard the renown of Andrea, they therefore inyited him to Venice, where he was commissioned to execute an equestrian statue of the commander above-named, which was to be placed on the Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo. The master accordingly, having prepared the model, was proceeding to take the necessary measures for casting it in bronze, when, by the favour of certain persons among the Venetian nobles, it was determined that Vellano of Padua should execute the figure of the general, and